Deconstruction of Love
by Angeling
Summary: Umeda's POV of his relationship with Kijima. My first attempt at fanfic so please read & review!


A/N: This is my first piece of fanfic and it is very hard to write as first person but thought that it would be able to express what I wanted to say better. I hope that the characters are not too OCC since it's been quite awhile since I have read HanaKimi… Have been going through a withdrawal of HanaKimi since it ended so I hope that will help others like me experience more HanaKimi love.

Please drop me some comments and I will try to improve upon them. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing though I would love having Umeda sensei in my school…

Sometimes, love hits you like a freight train… when you least expect it…

(Umeda's POV)

A thin tendril of smoke rises into the air, the acrid smell of the cigarette dredging up memories of the past… the beginning of a delicate and tenuous friendship, spiraling into an unexpected and intangible relationship.

It had begun as a challenge to me, a nagging insistence to unravel the mystery of the entity called Kijima; the perfect, a model student of Ohsaka Gakuen. No one saw beyond what you wanted them to see… No one but me.

You thought that you had everyone fooled, that everyone was under your spell. But I saw your true colours and though it into what you tried to keep hidden from the world.

On the outside, you appear intelligent and confident. You had the world at your feet. But I saw the inner you - the lost and lonely boy. You craved affection and respect yet you were careful to distant them from yourself as well. You are not conceited. You are simply not interested in basking in the awe of people whose opinions you do not value. Their views of you do not matter if they mean nothing to you in the first place.

You need to be taught that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

That had been my initial aim, the root of my interest in you. I was intrigued by your complexity and was confident that I would be the one to unravel the real you to the world… Never realizing that I would fall under your spell too.

I thought we had many common grounds. However, where I was open and true about myself, you sought to keep the real you under wraps. You are a hypocrite, a beautiful façade.

I guess I was the one who initiated the initial contact between us where you were contented to go on your own way. I threw the challenge and made you pick up the gauntlet. Deep inside, I know that I have never regretted the way things turn out. After all, I was the one who was mistaken about us while you were upfront and clear right from the start about where we were headed. I was simply deluded like the others and ended up pursuing a mirage I created.

Does the Kijima I love actually exist?

I can still recall the day you picked up my challenge and set me up for the fall. I instinctively knew where to find you; at the rooftop - my favorite hangout to indulge in my vice of smoking. You pulled me close and lighted my cigarette with yours. I felt the connection then. The jolt of awareness as our eyes connected. Your gaze was unflinching while I scrambled to try to understand how you had suddenly pulled the carpet from below me and changed the dynamics between us.

You said we shared secrets and made me feel different, special. Somehow our 'relationship' had evolved into something more than a simple friendship between classmates despite my better judgment.

Sometimes I often wondered if you had the gift of sight. You knew what I felt for you even before I realized it myself. And subtly, in that manipulative way of yours, you turned things in your favor.

Our first embrace happened unexpectedly. Your breath was warm against my ear as you held me close in the darkened room on the bed, sending shivers down my spine. The room was so quiet I could hear the thundering of my heart as I dwelled in your embrace wishing that time would stand still. Did you hear it too? Your 'innocent comment' my cowardly behavior made me flush but that was not as half bad as if you had noticed that I was aroused by your your being so near me. On a second thought, I think you had noticed but simply decided to save that ammunition for another day.

People say that a person's true nature is revealed when he sleeps. I guess that there will always be exceptions. You are so closely guarded that your sleeping face may simply be another one of your masks which you put on to face the world. I had been seduced by your angelic mask of sleep. I was blinded into seeing only what I wanted to see. Was that really you? Or the devil in you making me sin?

I stole our first kiss then, when I found you resting in the classroom. I was unable to resist it. No, I did not want to fight the temptation at all. The pull between us was becoming so strong and unconsciously, I willing let myself be sucked into this whirlpool of emotions that till now I am unable to escape out of.

Your lips were half open, your eyelashes casting dark shadows upon your face, hiding the bruises that were beginning to form under your eyes. I lay my lips gently on yours. I wanted to kiss you awake, wanted desperately to tangle my tongue with yours. But I was did not want to see the disgust in your eyes if you did not reciprocate my feelings. How foolish I was then!

My newfound feelings made me so sexually aware of you that it was difficult for me to even breathe the same air as you. The sight of you placing your lips on my cigarette caused my breath to hitch while you seemed to be completely oblivious to the tension in the air between us. I now realized that you were simply playing another of your mind games; trying to incite me to make another move.

Was our relationship a chess game to you? You could foresee all the moves that an amateur chess player like me would make. Hell, you provoke me to move in the direction that you wanted. I would not be surprised if you even knew how many moves it would take for you to checkmate.

All hell broke loose that night in the rain. Your worried look about someone else while I pined for you finally pushed me over the edge. Was it another of your predetermined moves? The final death blow for you to win the game? You seemed to have a motive for every action you make. Did I ever see the real you in all these years? Even once would have been enough. This is the pathetic state which you have reduced me to.

Our first kiss was more that what I had expected. Our passion and heat a stark contrast with the cold of the falling rain as we clung together like two survivors of a shipwreck. No matter the reasons for the attraction, it was undeniable and at the moment, I did not care if I was the moth who had gotten too near to the flame.

Now I want more.

I always wondered what it was that we had between us throughout these years. Was it only a one-sided love on my part? You had finally found someone to stand by you always. This has not changed even till now. I have never given up being there for you; you were always the one careless with my feelings. You are a player. I understand that it is your nature and I had learnt to play by your rules. I had learnt not to expect more from you. Ironically, the catalyst which sparked our kiss in the rain also set the roles which we were to play throughout our relationship - I was always the one looking at you while you looked at someone else.

There is a breaking point for everything. Has our time ended? Or has it just begun again?

I extinguished my cigarette, frustrated with my indecision yet at the same time, realizing that there was never a choice to be made right from the start. There must be a reason why lovers are considered blinded fools. I turned to face the other.

"Kajima is back."


End file.
